Earthquake and Volcano Lab

Students read seismographs, test buildings on a shake table, mix magma to build volcanoes and map the Ring of Fire.

Grades 4–5Virtual lab · 4 stations1 student per deviceNo student loginsWorks offline

Try it free: the demo opens the Start page and Station 1 right in your browser. No sign-up needed.

Virtual labs are sold separately and aren’t part of the All-Access licenses.

Grade level

Grades 4–5: Seismograph reading, shake-table design and Ring of Fire mapping for Grades 4–5

P and S waves, magnitude and distance, earthquake-safe design, magma thickness and gas, eruption types, plate boundary patterns, map data

NGSS: 4-ESS2-2 · 4-ESS3-2 · 3-5-ETS1-1 · 3-5-ETS1-3

Open the game file in any web browser: Chromebooks, laptops or your smartboard. No accounts, no student logins and no internet needed once it's downloaded.
Each student types their name on the Start page, then works through the stations in order. Each station has a prediction, a hands-on activity, a data table or log that fills in as they work and a check question.
Students finish with a printable lab report (print or save as PDF). The Teacher Notes include the standards, a full answer key and a reset button for shared devices.
Each purchase includes the lab file and a one-page Quick Start guide.